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Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

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Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#31

Post by filereaper »

I highly recommend watching the video by Scott Galloway on The College Implosion. [1]

"Colleges have become luxury brands and are adopting a strategy of artificial scarcity to create irrational margins"

There's a large movement right now where many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it.

Colleges sell themselves for the experience and are a luxury lifestyle brand almost, but with covid the lifestyle aspect of it is wiped out, so its reasonable that students are asking why they'd pay such high premiums.

I think removing SAT, ACT casts a wider net and hopefully allows more students to enroll, what's the scaling limitation if everyone's doing lectures on Zoom? Presumably everyone's also getting graded electronically in some way.

[1]: https://youtu.be/d8kwzSTITP0

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#32

Post by laser »

contemporary343 wrote: post #28

I'm a Canadian who went to an ivy for undergrad, and have always found the American attachment to the SAT a bit puzzling. I'm also puzzled at the widespread view that by removing the SAT some grave injustice or lowering in standards is inevitable. Canadian universities manage to admit students mostly just based on high school grades just fine. (Yes, there are provincial final exams but those scores often are not avai…

The most competitive universities in Canada, like McGill and UBC have 46% and 52% acceptance rates. Canada has more of a culture of going to college in the province you grew up. To compare that to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. that have sub-10% admittance rates and have to review tens of thousands of applications is failing to realize the scope of the problem these schools face in selecting students.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#33

Post by memexy »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #24
SamReidHughes wrote: post #13

Caltech is doing this -- actually, they're going test blind -- for two years. I think that's pretty notable, since I trust them to be interested in only admitting students that can pass their physics classes.

I'm a PhD student at Caltech. There's also a push to eliminate the GRE as a requirement for graduate admissions, in much the same way as some people want to eliminate the SAT as a requirement for undergraduate admissions. In my opinion both proposals are well-intentioned but ultimately bad ideas.

Why are they bad ideas? I took the SAT and GRE for undergraduate and graduate schools respectively and neither was worthwhile preparation for anything I studied. If we want to put up barriers to entry then I think we can find better and more predictive ways than measuring general pattern matching skills with the SAT and GRE.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#34

Post by contemporary343 »

laser wrote: post #32
contemporary343 wrote: post #28

I'm a Canadian who went to an ivy for undergrad, and have always found the American attachment to the SAT a bit puzzling. I'm also puzzled at the widespread view that by removing the SAT some grave injustice or lowering in standards is inevitable. Canadian universities manage to admit students mostly just based on high school grades just fine. (Yes, there are provincial final exams but those scores often are not avai…

The most competitive universities in Canada, like McGill and UBC have 46% and 52% acceptance rates. Canada has more of a culture of going to college in the province you grew up. To compare that to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. that have sub-10% admittance rates and have to review tens of thousands of applications is failing to realize the scope of the problem these schools face in selecting students.

I'm very familiar with the scope of the admissions challenge and it's not really an issue of number of applicants. Most universities already have an understanding of different high schools (though often biased to wealthier communities). As for Canada, specific programs at Canadian schools can be quite selective - for example EngSci at the University of Toronto has a ~10% admission rate. Other programs are more like state schools in the US. Most elite schools in the US are still pretty regional heavy. For example 35% of Stanford undergrads are from CA and something like 30-40% of Harvard undergrads are from New England and the mid-atlantic.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#35

Post by mjfl »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #13

Caltech is doing this -- actually, they're going test blind -- for two years. I think that's pretty notable, since I trust them to be interested in only admitting students that can pass their physics classes.

I think it's a bad idea. There are people who grew up in poverty that still do well on the SAT, in fact that's exactly what the SAT is for - to identify those people, who might not be informed about math competitions or intel science fairs, or have connections at local universities, but have good potential.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#36

Post by beaner »

filereaper wrote: post #31

I highly recommend watching the video by Scott Galloway on The College Implosion. [1] "Colleges have become luxury brands and are adopting a strategy of artificial scarcity to create irrational margins" There's a large movement right now where many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it. Colleges sell themselves for the experience and are a luxury lifestyle brand almost, but with covid th…

I don't get it, aren't most colleges non-profits? Why do they seek such high tuition fees if they're not profiting? Or are they, somehow?

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#37

Post by xvedejas »

memexy wrote: post #33
gautamcgoel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a PhD student at Caltech. There's also a push to eliminate the GRE as a requirement for graduate admissions, in much the same way as some people want to eliminate the SAT as a requirement for undergraduate admissions. In my opinion both proposals are well-intentioned but ultimately bad ideas.

Why are they bad ideas? I took the SAT and GRE for undergraduate and graduate schools respectively and neither was worthwhile preparation for anything I studied. If we want to put up barriers to entry then I think we can find better and more predictive ways than measuring general pattern matching skills with the SAT and GRE.

To quote Scott Aaronson:

Admissions to the top US universities—and hence, most chances for social advancement in the US—will henceforth be based entirely on shifting and nebulous criteria that rich, well-connected kids and their parents spend most of their lives figuring out, rather than merely mostly based on such criteria. The last side door for smart noncomformist kids is now being slammed shut.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#38

Post by wespiser_2018 »

This makes sense: Harvard has a huge issue with discrimination against Asian Americans, who are not represented according to their ACT/SAT score distribution. If Harvard could waive away these scores, they can continue their admissions policy that favor students from wealthy families who pay full price, and are likely to be institutional givers after graduation by focusing on admission factors that are much less accountable, like "personality".

Student's for Fair Admissions is in the process of suing Harvard over discrimination, and their website (with legal filings) is probably the single best source of information on Ivy League admissions: https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/updates/

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#39

Post by vkou »

xvedejas wrote: post #37
memexy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they bad ideas? I took the SAT and GRE for undergraduate and graduate schools respectively and neither was worthwhile preparation for anything I studied. If we want to put up barriers to entry then I think we can find better and more predictive ways than measuring general pattern matching skills with the SAT and GRE.

To quote Scott Aaronson: Admissions to the top US universities—and hence, most chances for social advancement in the US—will henceforth be based entirely on shifting and nebulous criteria that rich, well-connected kids and their parents spend most of their lives figuring out, rather than merely mostly based on such criteria. The last side door for smart noncomformist kids is now being slammed shut.

And to quote someone on HN:

Colleges, as insitutions, care about progressive, equality of opportunity values. Those nebulous criteria will coalesce to produce roughly the same outcomes that they currently do.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#40

Post by Fezzik »

memexy wrote: post #33
gautamcgoel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a PhD student at Caltech. There's also a push to eliminate the GRE as a requirement for graduate admissions, in much the same way as some people want to eliminate the SAT as a requirement for undergraduate admissions. In my opinion both proposals are well-intentioned but ultimately bad ideas.

Why are they bad ideas? I took the SAT and GRE for undergraduate and graduate schools respectively and neither was worthwhile preparation for anything I studied. If we want to put up barriers to entry then I think we can find better and more predictive ways than measuring general pattern matching skills with the SAT and GRE.

I am hard pressed to think of better methods to fairly and uniformly measure if person A is more qualified for college than person B. There has to be something to differentiate, as objectively as possible, between candidates. And, while not perfect, standardized tests fit the bill.

I, for one, find standardized tests far more stomach-able as barriers to entry to a university than the exclusive whims of administrators attempting to gauge the qualities of applicants.

Universities just need to do a good job of weighting the exams - I had lackluster LSAT scores, though not awful, but wrote an amazing law school entry essay and had a unique background: AmeriCorps, ski bum, tutor, etc... that catapulted me in to law school.

Entirely removing any type of exam from the college entry process just seems antithetical to what college is about.

Edit: a word.

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